Statement:

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Lebanon has been going through an extremely dark and violent time. In one

week we have witnessed increased racist deportation rhetoric against Syrian

refugees by government officials, several vicious attacks against women, and

the continuation of summons of journalists and activists for interrogation in

retaliation to criticism they posted on social media.

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On Friday, June 24, the Lebanese Minister of Interior adhered to calls from

independent religious authorities and issued a letter that condemned any

and all public activities and events related to the LGBTQ community that

Helem and other organizations had planned. In the statement, the minister

claimed the events were spreading “sexual perversion” which he states goes

against Lebanese society’s customs, traditions, and beliefs as enshrined in the

Abrahamic faiths. The letter was accompanied by extensive homophobic and

transphobic hate speech on conservative print media and on social media, as

well as similar statements from religious authorities condemning, among

other things, civil marriage.

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These events are not unrelated and not coincidental.

First of all, it is perplexing why a caretaker minister thinks it is part of his

duties to incite violence and hate speech against a marginalized community

of his own citizens, especially as the letter fails to refer to any legal text that

justifies a ban on any public activities and goes in direct contradiction with

the constitutional right of all Lebanese citizens to exercise their right to

freedom of speech, expression, and assembly. Not only are we within our full

rights to assemble and exist as individuals, but that specific right was also

recently publicly and formally accepted in Lebanon’s 2021 Universal Periodic

Review process at the Human Rights Council, where the Lebanese

government officially and clearly accepted the recommendation to allow

LGBTQ people the right and space to express and assemble freely. The

Minister’s reference to religious scripture as a basis for government policy is a

dangerous and serious precedent that undermines Lebanese law as the basis

for governance. We would like to remind the minister that the Lebanese

penal code does not criminalize any identity and that several judicial rulings

for the past decade have considered adult consensual same-sex relations to

be natural and therefore inadmissible under Article 534 of the penal code.

It is also perplexing why, in a country whose citizens have no electricity, no

medication, no access to clean water, no social security, and 30%

unemployment the minister thought to prioritize LGBTQ events as the

biggest threat to national security. In a country where 50% of the population

lives under the poverty line, people’s life savings have been stolen, and where

not a single arrest has been made against individuals accused of blowing up

Beirut Port in August 2020 – the ministry of interior found it necessary to

incite hatred and violence not only with law enforcement but with the

general public as well, against its own people.

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The deliberate act of inciting moral sexual panic and targeting LGBTQ

individuals is a very old, superficial, and commonly used tactic by failed

regimes to draw attention away from economic and political disasters.

Regimes and institutions that have failed in providing justice, safety and

security for their people often rely on attacking and sacrificing marginalized

communities to distract the public from their failures and corruption. These

cowardly acts are meant to show their supporters that they are actively

protecting them, that they are “doing something” when in fact they are doing

nothing but furthering their own exploitation while they are too busy

blaming LGBTQ people for the total collapse of the Lebanese state and

society.

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These tactics will not work anymore. We will no longer allow you to sacrifice

our safety to maintain your power. We will no longer allow you to compromise

our dignity to hide your failure. The sectarian and class warfare that this state

and its establishments have been waging on poor people, refugees, laborers,

queer individuals, women, migrant workers, and other marginalized

communities has become more obvious and less efficient. There will come a

day when you will try this and no one will listen to you. Every single day more

and more marginalized people refuse to bow to violence and shame. Every

single day more and more of us are banding together to stop you – soon you

will not be able to stop us.

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Helem,

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